1. My Parent’s Divorce

The main problem with the funeral announcement shown on the home page is that my parents were quite demonstrably divorced… about the only things they still shared were the children!

The history of the failing marriage is set out in my book. Other relationships faltered within the family, and one brother changed his name to my mother’s maiden name. Some of my siblings evidently did not want to either acknowledge or accept all of the rifts that had happened.

My mother’s relationship to Vi was a deeply entangled one, and that aspect of things rather precludes the idea that my mother had in any meaningful sense remained close to my father.

We can perhaps take a closer look at my mother’s moralising and disapproving attitude toward my father, as well.

2. Family Medical Conditions

Three out of the five siblings developed Type 2 diabetes (myself, Diana and one other), and my grandfather Wheelton suffered also. Amongst the offspring of my mother’s three siblings, there seem to be fewer occurrences. The genetics of the condition are not straightforward, and there are quite a number of mutations that can contribute. So, there may within this nuclear family be particular aggregates which include my father’s gene pool which may contribute to the relatively higher density among the siblings.

I and my grandfather Wheelton developed an aortic aneurysm. There is a higher incidence of this condition among diabetics. More generally, there are higher incidences of vascular disease among diabetics; and, in my case, I have cardiovascular disease. There is a strong suggestion that Diana suffered from this also, for she died of a cardiac arrest aged sixty-two.

In July 2017, I had a CT scan of the brain and some significant brain damage was discovered. It appears from this that we have a physiological explanation for why I lost the power of speech at about eighteen months old. My mother indeed felt alienated from me, and there is now this strand with which I can make some reappraisals of all that happened.

3. About the Mental and Moral Health Issues

This article (and the book) is largely about how my mother managed the children and family relationships not so much for everyone’s future benefit but for her own needs. Of course, as parents, each of us will express our various personal vanities; but it has been my contention that things became out of kilter.

And, in the funeral announcement, it is fairly clear that my mother had had a significant relationship with her “friend” Vi. But my siblings chose to ostentatiously present my mother as being some sort of grieving widow when my parents had, in fact, been rather bitterly divorced. The fuller discussion on how and why this might have been done by them is within my book.

Now my mother, Vi and various of my siblings had presented that I was some sort of moral dwarf compared to all of them; they had expressed rage and anger toward me. The indignation expressed even took on the character of my being regarded as untermensch or subhuman. And, indeed, I was often unfavourably compared to my father and his side of the family, with alleged faults and weaknesses either described or alluded to.

We now have this new focus because certainly I was distressed and had lost the power of speech and, for several years in childhood, I had a pronounced stammer and some other developmental difficulties.

Back in 2016 when I published my book, the somewhat malicious misinterpretation of my childhood developmental difficulties was not so clear to me. And, ever since the funeral and the announcement thereof, I had always intended to return to that subject as best as I could.